Why do so many men and some some think the traditional family values should be kept?

Question

What makes traditional values of 1950's so fabulous. I read here often (mostly by feminist haters) that the traditional 1950's values were really great. Why? Domestic violence occurred but kept under wraps, incest occurred (not everywhere all the time but occurred) and kept a secret. Women were conditioned that no matter what ridiculous demands the head of the house hold (men) made they should be obeyed. Boys were given permission to sow their wild oates and girls told to be virgins or at least look to be virgins. Girls under educated, boys educated. Girls committed to a life of obligation by their families (marriage) at early ages. What exactually was so fabulous about the traditional role? There were no choices, no long term jobs and carreers for women, no "nothing" for women and yet I hear laments all the time about the nasty feminists and the fabby traditional vlaues and the 50's.

Is 1950's and the traditional family values a myth or legend better left to another forum?

Answer 1

because it allowed them to have little responsibility, place all the blame on women and boost their very fragile egos by putting women down. I see how men with no self confidence would love those times, what i really don't understand is women who complain that those times are gone. Really? is that something you desperately want back?



balla210, let me get this straight, what you are saying is, let's once again strip women of their rights so that men can have their traditional families? A 4 letter word comes to mind. If you love those days so much, why don't you be a stay at home dad? Yes, cook, clean, take care of the kids, submit to your wife and all her needs b/c she is the bread winner, submit to earning way less than a female counterpart at the same position if you decide to take a job, submit to working so hard and having women take credit for what you have achieved. Least i forget, you would also be seen not heard, you will remain a virgin till you get married while the women sow their wild oats, you will not have anything under your name because you are a property of your wife and well forget voting, your opinion doesn't count. Don't sit in front of your computer and whine. If you want it that bad, that is what you have to do

Answer 2

A little bit of both. The values of every era of history have positives and negatives; the problem occurs when people try to totally scrap the old values without taking a look at what the positves were. (Or when conservatives insist that *everything* was better then which, as you pointed out, is not true either.)



The double-standard between the sex roles of men and women was very much a "quirk" of the time, however. In most of American history before the 1950's, both men and women were urged to avoid sex before marriage (though many did it anyway). It was not considered the obligation of the female to ward off the advances of animalistic males - all parties were expected to "say no".



The idea that women were the only ones obligated to their families in the 50's is not true. Men were seen as equally responsible for providing for them and keeping them safe. The 1950's deadbeat dad was just as unusual and criticised as the 1950's career woman who put her own needs above that of her family. (Which is how they would have characterized her at the time.) Sacrifice was held up as a high value, for both men and women.



With the many changes of the 60's and 70's came many more choices for women. I think overall, this has been very positive. However, we have now lost the idea that anyone should sacrifice *at all* in order to benefit his/her family. We now have the right as women to be abandoned by our husbands, should they not "feel fullfilled" and decide to leave. A man in earlier times would have been completely ostracised for this, now he is applauded for "being true to himself", and the heck with his wife and children. The blame for this major shift in attitude is only partially from the women's movement, of course. But the reason people look back on the 50's fondly was that, if a husband and wife could possibly attain it, their children would be raised by family and would not be abandoned to starve by one parent. It's quite easy to wax nostalgic when you see the lonely little faces peering out of the window at daycare at 6 pm, or when you see a little boy paying for a meal with food stamps after his Dad disappeared.



There are positives and negatives, both, and insisting that the past was *fully* one way or another is silly.

Answer 3

It is like looking back with rose coloured glasses. When knights were around in 12th century, it is perceived as an age of chivalry. The knights in fact murdered unarmed serfs, raped and pillaged. There was no chivalry.

We look back at the 50's and things were slower and quieter, fewer murders, men tended to be the spiritual leaders of the family unit, now men walk out of relationships and give little guidance to their children. Workers wore suits, now things are casual. Children could walk to school and be harassed by perverts.

Not all boys were given permission to sow their wild oats. If you watch shows like Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, then you get an idea of life in the 50's. No microwaves, no colour TV, no personal computers. Better - maybe from some aspects. But over all, not really.

As to the woman's role as housekeeper, stay at home mom - again that is viewed through tinted glasses. Basically, men knew where they stood in the 50's. Now with women's lib, men are confused as to their role. There is more grey areas. Women want something different than the way things were in the past, yet they are not quite sure what that is. It appears that some women want to lower themselves to the level of a man. And when they are treated at that level, they scream sexism. The grass is always greener on the other side, until you get there.

Answer 4

Many of the injustices you mention are/were real, but pointing out the foolishness in the undervaluing of female capabilities that characterizes the babble that romanticizes the so-called "traditional family values," as you have chosen to define them does nothing to justify nor dignify the gross overreaction of militant feminists (and their tired, boring lecture circuit progeny) that have tried, with some success, to make any woman that chooses to stay home and raise kids feel as if she has made a choice to undervalue HERSELF.



The people wearing rose-colored glasses got the baby and the bathwater thrown down the back of their pants and were told it was no more than a lumpy spring shower while the ones throwing them claimed - and still do - they were casting off nothing but chains.



I happen to believe that kids need their mother, at least until the reach puberty or thereabouts. The fact that statement is considered by many females to be as much an insult as a compliment is a tribute to the at best misguided, at worst insidious, efforts of those females that have managed with rhetoric worthy of history's best demagogues and character assassins to make single parent homes and two career households a regrettable majority in this country (US).



I feel a woman should have all the choices she cares to. But I also believe she should make a choice between having a career or raising kids, in the cases where she has that choice. Just like I feel that a person shouldn't get a dog if all they can manage on it's behalf is to chain it up in the yard and stick food and water under it's nose that it can reach if it doesn't tangle its chain.



Most kids raised in so-called "traditional" homes turn out better than those left to figure it all out for themselves. Exceptions, exceptions, of course. But there's no question in my mind that the world is getting more and more f*ucked up. If we really want to figure out why, seems we can't ignore the possibility that our parents and ancestors weren't as stupid as it has become chique and oddly satisfying for many to believe.



Oh, and you left homosexuality out of your list of things that were swept under the rug in the '50's. Could have had a show about that.



"Leave it, it's Beaver!"



sorry. I can only be serious for so long until I run out of gas. Got that on the air on a local radio station when they were having a contest for show names on the new f*ag channel. I came up with lots more, but none that got on the air. Or could be posted here without drawing the piezo ignited dragon's butt breath of the Grand Yahoozela.

Answer 5

It's a myth.

like all myths are, this one has been sanitized and buffed to a sheen to make the successive generations believe the lies.

I was born in 1957 and my parents were the total picture of Americana. White picket fence, Dad was a GI, Mom stayed at home.

We kids were abused, my parents were both alcoholics, and there were secrets under every carpet.

Hypocrisy at it's finest, it was, and this is one reason I despise the "Happily submissive" crap one particular poster puts down our throats here on YA. She can live it all she wants, but don't criticize those who choose otherwise.

For a taste of how the 50s really were, watch David Lynch's Twin Peaks.

Good luck



Ha! Barking~

I'm gonna borrow the Beaver line.

That is too funny!

Answer 6

Read Kushwant Singh's Biography titled "truths, lies and..." The value system and all is total bull crap. The only value system ever correct is value for the humanbeing. You would be shocked to learn that in 30's our elders were so bad in values they cannot even look straight in our eyes. Also if you look at those old sculptures where sex is depicted so explictly in so many forms what kind of value did those people have? Artistic stuff?? Bull crap.



Simple thing - whichever era you belong to just be warm to the environment. All is ok.



There is nothing called traditional values. If a family has a tradition it has got to be just one - they must have lived happily without harming anyone and their contribution to the society is just not causing trouble in anyway. Other traditions are time passing events that has no relevance to the well being of the society.

Answer 7

There are two different kinds of men who want traditional family values kept--and both of them view "traditional values" in different ways.



The first are the men who want the women to be under his orders and kept "barefoot and pregnant". He comes home from work to a **** and span clean home and dinner ready at the table and his first thoughts/words to his wife are "so what DID you do all day?", assuming she was sitting and watching TV all day long. She asks for money for something special to do for herself and she is told, "I'm not going to waste MY money on that." He will also make all decisions without even consulting with his wife. She will have no say in anything. Then when he comes home from work, he goes straight to the television, or the internet and pays no attention to his wife and children. Or he is out hanging out with the boys too often.



the second type of men are the ones who do not mean traditional family values in the way the first type of men do. They simply mean that the mother will stay at home WORKING to raise the children, and cook and clean the home. She has full access to the bank account and she helps get the bills paid. Oh, and nowadays, instead of through the mail, many will use the internet to do so. He consults with her on decisions for the family and the home. She is his partner, his wife,it is not a father-daughter relationship, but a partnership. While he works outside of the home, she works in the home.... and because of this he gets to come home to a comfortable, clean home... where then he gets to spend quality time with his wife and children.



there are men who will be in somewhere in the middle also... of course.



So women shouldn't be quick to get defensive and jump on men for saying "traditional family values" because how do you know the men are all the first type of man described? Maybe the one you speak to is the 2nd type of man? They probably have to come up with another term instead of "traditional family values" so they don't get their a**es chewed off when they try to speak of it...

Answer 8

I remember my mom talking about "leave it to beaver" and she would say, "My family was nothing like that. The updated version for me was the "Brady Bunch" and my family life sure did'nt resemble them at all. I don't remember an episode where Mr. and Mrs Brady had to decide weather to pay the light bill or buy groceries for the kids. But, my parents did. Television has always been creative but not always realistic and truthful about what (really) goes on in the majority of families. I remember watching a show called "Good Times" with Jimmy Walker, now that show presented a strugggling family working hard to put food and the table....now that was real. Leave it to Beaver was the created ideal, the fantasy.



My Grandmother said that she would have left my grandpa back in the 50's if she would have had somewhere to go. As a housewife with no money and eight children she really had no options........and grandpa knew that. She also quit school in the third grade to help the family farm which left her with almost no schooling and only able to sign her name. But many people want to say, "those were the good old days", i bet alot of our grandmothers have a different take on that.



To be sure, the Religious Right would love see the "FANTASY OF THE 50'S" back in full swing. Why not? Men would go to some mysterious place to work that the children and wife were oblivious to. They were not expected to defer to thier wife in anything they did, be it work time or leisure time. But, he could always be sure of one thing.......the little wife was at home, waiting, whenever he decided to come home. She stood at the door with a smile with the smell of pot roast and apple cobbler wafting past her to meet the master. What man would'nt want that fantasy? The only area that was not privy to the audience was the couples sex life. But we all had to believe if the Mrs. was that submissive and pleasing in public, thier private sex life had to be great as well. But, that had to be left to our imaginations....i.e the fact that people did not talk about those things did'nt mean they did'nt wander about them.



Traditional values as I see them represented, really were very advantageous for the man. If a woman fell for this "Victorian Fairytale" and lived it she was basically low maintenance to him. She was never demanding or intruding, she never insisted on her needs being met because it was exclusively her job to be self-less, and to make sure that everyone else was taken care of. I say again, what traditional men would'nt want that?



I do believe that the roots of feminism were right. But like with many movements it's the splintering off of, and divisions within it that cause the most damage. Where feminism went wrong was that they began to insist on the right to "Sin as Men" when they should have insisted that men be held to the same standards of purity and morality that women were expected to maintain. Don't get me wrong the feminist movement has done some great things that we as women should be thankful for but, it has also taken us down "dark avenues" that alot us consider dangerous.



We need to get this movement back on the right track for the sake of our daughters and grandaughters. I would like the feminist movement to be known for the good that its done but if we keep on this immoral path it will only continue in a downward spiriral. At this rate we are placing more obstacles in the paths of our daughters and granddaughters instead of making the way easier.

Answer 9

Just look at the gian leap mankind has done in the past 100 years. Iam sure the nuclear family played a very important part to set the likes of Einstein Von Braun etc. on the right track, but also common people.

And now feminists come along who were raised by a loving family which used its resources to educate them nutured by a dedicated mother and says we can do away with all of it.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING !!!

Just look at those societies where you do NOT see the traditional nuclear family.

Frankly I dont see all those big advantages women pursuing a career in large numbers to make somone else richer. The market adapted pretty quickly and still keeps adapting. Now the check that a man earned is halfed so that both parents have to work due to an increase in supply which results in more work for both the father which has to work and deal with the chores and the mother who has to work and deal with the chores.



To conclude Id like to raise awarness on the high number of false rape reports filed each year which ruin the reputation of respectabel men and land numerous innocent men in jail.

Answer 10

it is not uncomplicated to generalize and have one answer persist with to 'all of us'. all of us could have their own motives. i think of a few human beings do it, with the aid of fact they have experienced divorce, and don't desire to have it ensue returned. (the two their own divorce, or that for the time of their mum and dad.) Supposedly 50% of marriages bring about divorce, nevertheless i don't have a particular connection with returned up that statistic. additionally, it form of feels that extramarital intercourse is greater prevalent now than in years previous. So in case you're already sexually lively with somebody, then it may desire to look much less 'taboo' to easily flow in with them, particularly than marrying them. And in case you have a newborn with somebody, why not basically flow in? i comprehend of somebody who does it for 'tax motives', and yet another couple that does it with the aid of fact one better half could lose their pension and wellness advantages in the event that they remarried. a third couple did not desire each and all of the fuss of a marriage, and instructed her mum and dad "No, we will basically stay at the same time." different ability motives could desire to incorporate: worry of dedication; you like the guy yet do not desire to be with them 'perpetually', convenience, or basically with the aid of fact you are able to. What does this propose for society? properly, there are a number of stuff that impact society. it somewhat is one. there are a number of childrens residing with single mum and dad, could those be seen 'real families' on your diagnosis?

Answer 11

It's also elitist to assume that "all" women in prior generations were married and their husbands made enough money to allow one partner to stay at home to take care of their children. There have always been women who were single, widowed, separated, and divorced who had to work and support their families. These women were limited to only a few, poorly paid jobs for decades in the US. Also, in the 1950's, many men of color were limited in the occupations they could pursue, and often were poorly paid as well. It's a myth that "all" women stayed at home-many families couldn't afford it then, like they still can't afford it now. Feminists are blamed for women having to work outside the home, but because of this myth, people forget that many women have had to work outside the home for decades to support their families.

Answer 12

Keep in mind that these people would much rather shut up, stay at home, and raise the kids (or have their wives do it) than have careers. There's no sense in trying to change their minds.

Answer 13

Well one thing I have to point out is please learn to spell or use a spell checker to help you out in the future, yikes!

One user pointed out that there were multiple bad things going on in the 50's just as they are now, but as it has been demonstrated the family structure was at least in place and that made for a better society. Examples are the lower out of wedlock birth rate and less divorces. Traditional family values have good points and fallacies as anything else does, such as the inherent inequality of women and men in a marriage because of the head of household standing of the man.

But in comparison to a society where it's "cool" to be bisexual, mind you not be born gay or lesbian, but just be acceptable to "experiment" and do whatever pleases someone in many respects; disrespect for people and the glamorization of prison culture, the negative aspects of 50's traditional values pale in comparison.

Answer 14

There were a lot of things wrong with traditional family values, but a LOT of things worked better!



There was a family structure. Two people didn't need to work. There was one person (albeit the mother) to RAISE the kids. There was a sense of pride about your house and family. There was abuse then, there is abuse now. The difference is that what was once kept in the family is now on Springer for the world to admire.



We have succumbed to mediocrity. The men don't work as hard to support their families and the women don't bother cleaning their house or looking pretty for the husband.



What we are left with are kids roaming the neighborhoods and being raised by daycare; mothers working two jobs to pay for the daycare; and fathers leaving the family to find someone that isn't constantly tired and that will bother to look pretty for him.



I miss families... bring back the 1950's

Answer 15

I remember it well!



Things housewives used to say:

"Have the men had enough?" -

"A hungry man is an angry man".

"After all I've done for you, this is all the thanks I get".

"Babies make your arms ache; when they're grown, they make your heart ache"

"You marry a man to be your rock to lean on, but he turns out to be a stone in the shoe".



Received wisdom from women today:



"It's not a glass ceiling, it's a thick layer of men".

Answer 16

I don't think these are traditional values. They are just people being messed up.